STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE When the Boston Globe began publishing stories in 2008 questioning Speaker Salvatore DiMasi’s role in the passage of a state contract for Cognos, the speaker met with Gov. Deval Patrick, blamed his administration for “leaking” harmful information to the newspaper and demanded that a senior administration official issue a statement distancing […]
State House News Service
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, State House News Service
Labor pains
It’s always sad to witness the estrangement of a long time committed couple who have been good for each other over so many years. Could we be seeing this today in the marriage between the Democrats and labor? There’s no reason to clear time on the probate court calendar for divorce proceedings, but things have […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
The Download: Days of yore
As much of America is fixated on a wedding in the royal family — except, believe it or not, viewers of Fox 25 — that harkens back to the time when we were colonists, yet another vestige of long ago is making its voice heard in our own backyard. The Executive Council (aka the Governor’s […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, State House News Service
House health vote enrages union officials
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE Labor unions were in open revolt Tuesday against the Democratic leaders of the House, promising political consequences for House Speaker Robert DeLeo and other state representatives who voted during a late night session to slash the collective bargaining power of municipal workers. Calling the vote to an assault on workers’ rights […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
The Download: Getting bolder on the environment
With Earth Day on the horizon, Phil Primack, a CommonWealth contributing writer, turned on the wayback machine, lamenting in a recent Boston Globe Magazine column that the passion that marked Boston’ first Earth Day has faded. Instead of 1970-style protests, such as a “die-in” at Logan Airport to protest supersonic jets, people today gravitate toward […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
The Download: The debt ratings game
Standard & Poor’s tried to goose Washington into tackling its financial problems yesterday. The ratings agency lowered its outlook on government debt, effectively saying that unless Congress and the White House can agree to raise the country’s debt ceiling and cut the deficit, the federal government’s AAA credit rating is history. Wall Street got the […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care, Politics, State House News Service
Dempsey tweaks Patrick proposals
The new House budget proposal tweaks two of Gov. Deval Patrick’s major initiatives, eliminating collective bargaining for many aspects of municipal health plan design and reducing the number of attorneys the state would hire to represent indigent defendants. The House health care proposal would allow municipalities to unilaterally set copays, deductibles, and other features of […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Boston NAACP moves to recapture relevance
The NAACP’s Boston branch all but dropped out of sight in recent years, but new president Michael Curry is looking to erase doubts about the all-volunteer organization’s relevancy by stepping up its advocacy for civil rights in education and the workplace. Since moving into the top slot earlier this year, the 42-year-old Curry has focused […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service
Lawrence on the mat
lawrence, with an anemic tax base and the state’s highest poverty rate, is no stranger to the usual litany of urban woes facing struggling cities. But Lawrence’s problems suddenly became the state’s problems last year when city found itself teetering on the fiscal brink. With Lawrence sinking under the weight of a $24.5 million budget […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
T advisory board backs cost shifting
UPDATE: A correction has been made to this story. See below. To help balance its fiscal year 2012 budget, the MBTA Advisory Board is proposing to transfer some of the T’s transportation services to the Masssachusetts Port Authority and merging the MBTA police units with the State Police. The advisory board proposal would transfer $4.1 million […]